A New 50 Year Old Scotch Emerges From Loch Lomond

Older Scotch whisky, much like the 70-year-old Glenlivet we wrote about recently, commands both a high degree of respect for its age and also a super high price tag. There are just a small number of distilleries which can make available such whisky, and it appears now Loch Lomond is one of those, having announced plans to release a 50-year-old bottling.

The new Loch Lomond 50 Year Old, according to those behind it, is this distillery’s oldest and rarest single malt whisky. It first matured in American oak hogshead and then in European oak hogshead for half a century at Loch Lomond Distillery in Alexandria before being bottled this year at 46.2% ABV. Only 60 hand blown, crystal decanters of it are being made available worldwide.

As is often the case with expressions like this, at least part of packaging is over the top in terms of quality of presentation and materials used in building it out. Each bottle is nested in a special bespoke chest developed by Method Studio in Scotland. This so-called “Tempest Chest,” as Loch Lomond puts it, is

hand-shaped in solid oak, leather lined and indigo-dyed until almost black in colour, the tactile, sculpted surface of each individually numbered chest is suggestive of water at twilight, with only a solid brass key visible from the exterior, mysteriously emerging from the surface to build intrigue. Inside, the bottle of Loch Lomond 50 Year Old rests carefully upon sculpted oak waves, alongside not an ordinary whisky miniature, but a solid turned brass vial, lined in glass and reminiscent of the straight neck pot still.

“The expectations are high when you are working with a whisky as special and scarce as this and it came with great responsibility, but selecting and perfecting this single malt was a true honor,” said Loch Lomond Master Blender, Michael Henry, in a prepared statement. “Our stills are synonymous with the fruity notes they give to the whisky. The Loch Lomond 50 Year Old has been granted the time to truly concentrate that character, resulting in a rich, tropical fruit flavor.”

Plans call for the Loch Lomond 50 Year Old to price at £12,000, or around $15,900 USD, when it releases in December.